Regional Differences

[DeaverTex]

Work hours around here are 8:00 to 5:00. I've always wondered how you made 9:00 to 5:00 work for a 40 hour week. No lunch?

You beat me to it, KristaTX!

 

[aprilgail2]

Work hours around here are 8:00 to 5:00. I've always wondered how you made 9:00 to 5:00 work for a 40 hour week. No lunch?

You beat me to it, KristaTex!

Why would you not get a lunch- I work 8-4 and get paid for 8 hours....all jobs I have ever worked you get paid for your lunch break.

 

[disykat]

Aren't your regular business hours 9-5? Unless everyone is a SAHM, I can't see how it's possible. I work 9-5 in NYC. I get home about 6 p.m., then have to cook,so we usually eat by 6:45 or 7 p.m.

9 - 5 are banker's hours, but I know very few people who work that schedule. Most people I know are 7:00 - 3:30 or something like that.

I've always thought it was odd when I go East and everything is on tv so early, yet they seem to have dinner hour, etc. so late.

 

[ArmyWife7]

And a shopping cart here is a shopping cart. They called it a carriage.

And in the deep south we call a shopping cart a buggy. LOL

 

[KristaTX]

Why would you not get a lunch- I work 8-4 and get paid for 8 hours....all jobs I have ever worked you get paid for your lunch break.

I have never worked an hourly paid job where you get paid for your lunch break, and I've never heard of that. Maybe if someone was required to work while they ate, but that's not too common.


So in other parts of the country, a typical full-time worker really only works 35 hours but get paid for 40 ?

 

[PrincessKsMom]

Normal business hours here are 9-5 or 9:30-5:30. For me it consists of 7 hour work day with 1 hour unpaid.

 

[Missy1961]

I work 9-5, with a 45 minute lunch break, which is unpaid. We got paid based on a 36.25 hr. work week.

 

[cornflake]

I have never worked an hourly paid job where you get paid for your lunch break, and I've never heard of that. Maybe if someone was required to work while they ate, but that's not too common.


So in other parts of the country, a typical full-time worker really only works 36 hours but get paid for 40 ?

Hourly employees generally don't get paid for lunch, here anyway, but salaried workers are paid for 9-5 and get lunch, sure.

I've never heard 9-5 as banker's hours, they're 'business hours' here because a good majority of jobs are on those - any office jobs are.

What jobs are from 7-3?

 

[Pea-n-Me]

So in other parts of the country, a typical full-time worker really only works 36 hours but get paid for 40 ?

Not to my knowledge. Many, if not most, jobs are unpaid for lunch. Just about every job I've ever held has had an unpaid lunch, generally 30 mins but I have had jobs where it's been an hour, too. Some jobs you even have to punch in and out for breaks. I don't know if this is regional but here there are laws about breaks as well. I believe it's the law that workers must have a 15 minute break for every 8 hrs they work along with 30 mins for lunch which can be unpaid.

 

[KristaTX]

And in the deep south we call a shopping cart a buggy. LOL

I call it a buggy, too. And I've always called the cart corral (which I first heard here on the DIS recently) the "buggy drop-off" for lack of a better name. But "cart corral" is a better term, and I've started using it.

 

[Conservative Hippie]

That reminds me-I thought everywhere you went around the country most people were Catholic like they are here.
I've always felt kind of weird for not being catholic since the majority of people I know are.
Well, I don't feel weird now, but in school when I wasn't making communion, or confirmation, was happily eating meat on Fridays, didn't give up anything for Lent, etc..
I am Protestant and had no clue that that is more common than Catholicism in other parts.
Almost every single person I knew growing up was Irish, Italian or both. So the Catholic thing makes sense. I was the only non Catholic Italian I knew, until I met my husband.

Anyway, to go along with that-I had no idea that in other parts of the country nothing is scheduled on Wednesday nights because that's church night or whatever. (Youth group? something..I forget, but I know my friend was surprised that we had stuff scheduled on a Wed night because they would never do that in her area because of church activities)

I have been to Bible study nearly every Wednesday night for my entire life

Also, my mom is Mexican and my dad is Irish, but none of us are Catholic!

 

[design_mom]

I'm salaried, but the average workday around here (ohio) is 9 hours -- 8 working + 1 hours lunch.

 

[KristaTX]

Hourly employees generally don't get paid for lunch, here anyway, but salaried workers are paid for 9-5 and get lunch, sure.

8-5 is the norm here even for salaried. Full-time is usually considered 40 hours a week. So an "office hours" job is usually referred to as "an 8 to 5 job", whereas it sounds like in other parts of the country, it's referred to as "a 9 to 5 job".

I think you all get the better end of that deal!!

And obviously, many salaried people (including my husband) work much more than just 40 hours a week.

 

[ArmyWife7]

In the casino industry, our lunch hour is paid. Plus we are provided a free meal.

When speaking with a friend from MN, she was having a "rummage sale". Another friend of mine from CT was having a "tag sale". In the south we call them "yard sales".

 

[cornflake]

In the casino industry, our lunch hour is paid. Plus we are provided a free meal.

When speaking with a friend from MN, she was having a "rummage sale". Another friend of mine from CT was having a "tag sale". In the south we call them "yard sales".

You mean a garage sale?

8-5 is the norm here even for salaried. Full-time is usually considered 40 hours a week. So an "office hours" job is usually referred to as "an 8 to 5 job", whereas it sounds like in other parts of the country, it's referred to as "a 9 to 5 job".

I think you all get the better end of that deal!!

And obviously, many salaried people (including my husband) work much more than just 40 hours a week.

The working more is true here too, certainly but yes, it's a '9 to 5,' I've never heard an '8 to 5' job nor have I held or known someone who's held that type of job whose hours were actually 8-5, not 9. Weirdness. How do you let companies get away with that? Heh.

 

[allison443]

9 - 5 are banker's hours, but I know very few people who work that schedule. Most people I know are 7:00 - 3:30 or something like that.

Hmmm, I always understood "bankers' hours" to refer to a shorter workday, like ending at 3:00 (going back to the old days when banks closed at 3, and there were no atms )
Maybe that's another regional difference

Do people you know work in corporate settings, law firms, governmental offices? Everyone I know in those jobs works 9-5 (or 9-5:30, 8:30-4:30, etc.) The hours of 7-3:30 would be a police officer, firefighter, nurse, hospital shift worker.

Interesting how things are different.

 

[emma'smom]

You mean a garage sale?

I think they mean a "stoop sale"....

 

[Pea-n-Me]

You mean a garage sale?

Ha!

I've never heard an '8 to 5' job nor have I held or known someone who's held that type of job whose hours were actually 8-5, not 9. Weirdness.

I worked those hours at one job and I HATED it. Wicked long day.

 

[momto2girls]

Hmmm, I always understood "bankers' hours" to refer to a shorter workday, like ending at 3:00 (going back to the old days when banks closed at 3, and there were no atms )
Maybe that's another regional difference

Do people you know work in corporate settings, law firms, governmental offices? Everyone I know in those jobs works 9-5 (or 9-5:30, 8:30-4:30, etc.) The hours of 7-3:30 would be a police officer, firefighter, nurse, hospital shift worker.

Interesting how things are different.

Interesting. Everyone I know who works in corporate offices or law offices, etc. has official hours of 8-5. Of course in reality most of them work much longer than that! When I worked in corporate America, I was usually at the office by 7:00 and usually didn't leave until 6:30-7:00. I usually ate at my desk too.

 

[NotUrsula]

Hourly employees generally don't get paid for lunch, here anyway, but salaried workers are paid for 9-5 and get lunch, sure.

I've always worked in either the deep South or the Midwest, and have been a salaried professional for every full-time job I've ever had. The "face-time" expectation was a minimum of 8 hours of WORKING time each day to account for a 40-hour workweek; if you are salaried you are expected to add extra time onto your day to account for your lunch break, so most people do not take an hour except in unusual situations. 30 minutes is very much the norm for everyone, even executives unless they are having a "lunch meeting." The expectation is that if you expect to be able to regularly walk out the door at 5 pm, then you'll have to regularly arrive no later than 8:30.

IME it is usually spelled out in the company handbook what the number of minimum hours in the unclassified workweek are, and that lunch does NOT count. (It also more often that not explains that you cannot choose to skip lunch in order to "legally" arrive later or leave earlier than usual.)

I've never heard 9-5 as banker's hours, they're 'business hours' here because a good majority of jobs are on those - any office jobs are.

Back in the 60's in the South, "banker's hours" were the hours during which the bank was actually open to the public. Where I lived that was usually 10-2; the schedule on which they were available to meet with customers. In the era before computers, bank employees were on-premises earlier and later than that, but they used the time to work on the books and reconcile. (My sister was an executive secretary to a bank president for many years in that era; she normally worked 8-5, but sometimes stayed late if a special client needed to come in to meet with her boss after hours.)

I've known a lot of offices over the years that staffed from 8-5 but did not open to visitors until 9 am; it gives the staff time to answer emails and review files for the day if necessary.

What jobs are from 7-3?

Many medical jobs are, because that is the usual "day shift" on the hospital clock. (Hospital shifts are normally 7-3, 3-11, and 11-7; thus 24-hour availability of patient care personnel.) Law enforcement personnel also often work those shift hours or something close to it, as do people who work in schools. I work near two large hospitals and I try very hard NOT to be on the road around 3 pm. Between school dismissal and the hospital shift changes, the traffic in that area is nightmarish around that time.